Harmony 525 and Hauppauge MCE Remote Kit

[Lozin]

Hey guys,

I just bought of these today with the aim of controlling my HTPC with the Harmony Remote using the IR reciever from the Hauppauge kit. I have spent sooo long looking on these forums and elsewhere for a simple how to guide to do this. From what i understand, i first set up my Hauppauge remote perfectly. That means using Eventghost and mapping different button pushes with actions in XBMC. That when thats all done, i can use the learning function and get the Harmony to copy these functions?

If for example i learn the up/down,back, fast forward etc of the Hauppauge, does that mean those buttons will only work when XBMC is open and i cant use those buttons for normal TV use?

Cheers

[supernoman]

That seems like a complicated way to set up a harmony. The harmony will most like have a database entry for the Hauppauge IR. You shouldn't have to manually program the Harmony button by button.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by normal TV use. Do you mean TV viewing on the same PC or TV viewing just off the TV?

Harmony + Event Ghost can take care of the first. Harmony alone can take care of the second.

[Bill48105]

EDIT: After posting I realized you have the MCE kit. I have the non-MCE kit so I'm guessing these instructions won't help, sorry. But this should still be useful for others with the non MCE version.

Hi Lozin,
I have a Hauppauge tuner with remote kit that I use and I too fought & fought with getting it to work correctly. Out of the box once you install the IR drivers that come on the cd or on the site the included remote does control some basic functions in XBMC but not enough to really be usable & not with my all-for-one URC-6131 Tivo-replacement remote. (Too cheap to buy a Harmony lol) Anyway, long story short after fighting with it for days I found I didn't need event ghost or IR Server or anything else besides the included drivers & some time.

With the Hauppauge IR driver installed & IR sensor plugged in I opened notepad & saved it as Debug.txt (the IR app senses that & whenever that window is in focus the codes for the button you press are displayed/typed into that notepad window.) Using the included remote I could see it was working because text appeared describing each key.

Next I edited c:\windows\Irremote.ini. I added to [SystemCode] section:
5=RS152117VCR0081
(That is the VCR 0081 I will be programming into my universal remote in the next step to control XBMC)

I also added to [Applications] section
Media Center=

I copied the [RS152117VCR0081] section from the sample ini found on one of the links below but not sure if it is even needed as I think it will just report CODExx for all buttons without this section but I didn't test. Mine is set as:

[RS152117VCR0081]
; Radio Shack 15-2117 remote, VCR 0081 code (Philips), default mapping

;;;;; Common buttons to HCWPVR and RS152117
1=1
2=2
3=3
4=4
5=5
6=6
7=7
8=8
9=9
0=0
29=MENU
32=CHNLUP
33=CHNLDOWN
17=VOLDOWN
16=VOLUP
13=MUTE
50=REWIND
53=PLAY
52=FASTFWD
55=REC
54=STOP
41=PAUSE

;;;;; Unique buttons to RS152117
12=POWER
;29=GUIDE
;;; SCAN
49=EXIT
;;; ARROWUP
;;; ARROWLEFT
11=SELECT
;;; ARROWRIGHT
;;; ARROWDOWN
;;; INFO
59=LAST
;;; PIP
;;; FREEZE
;;; SWAP
;;; MOVE
;;; PLUS100
;;; ENTER
62=TVVIDEO
;;; SLEEP


I saved the file & restarted the IR app (under Programs->Hauppauge->restart IR)

Next I programed a VCR with code 0081 into my universal remote. (There are others that work too but that seemed to have the most buttons available for mapping.) Once I did that I pressed buttons on my universal remote with Debug.txt notepad screen up in focus & it registered the buttons I pressed! Most were debug codes like CODE51 or vs CHNLUP or whatever. NOTE: Some keys will do nothing but my remote lets me remap buttons (and I suspect the Harmony or others allow this too). The tricky part was remapping a button then testing in Debug.txt to make sure it wasn't already used by another button. See below for more info on it.

Next I added a new section in Irremote.ini called [Media Center] where I'll add my mappings. Mine looks like this & can control pretty much anything I need in XBMC:

[Media Center]
CODE27={up}
CODE26={down}
CODE19={left}
CODE18={right}
SELECT={enter}
EXIT={esc}
LAST={backspace}
CHNLUP={pgup}
CHNLDOWN={pgdn}
STOP=x
PAUSE={space}
PLAY=p
REWIND=r
FASTFWD=f
CHNLUP={pgup}
CHNLDOWN={pgdn}
MENU=c
CODE60=i
POWER=s
;Commented ones for me to make use of later
;CODE15=GUIDE
;CODE51=REPEAT
;CODE56=SKIP
;CODE20=SLOW

The code on the left is what was printed out in Debug.txt and the code on the right is the keyboard command for the desired function in XBMC.

Since some of the buttons on my remote spit nothing out in Debug.txt they could not be used to control anything in XBMC. I got around that because my remote allows me to remap buttons. (Links below for where I found much of that info) Once I remapped a key I tested it in Debug.txt to find the resulting scan code & added it to my Irremote.ini file in the [Media Center] section with the appropriate keystroke to control XBMC. Rinse & repeat until you key all buttons working as you want.

Overall I am quite happy with this setup. It doesn't require any extra software to be installed/configured which is a plus (I wanted to install as little as possible especially 3rd party apps) and I can control all the essential controls in XBMC or any other program I feel like adding to Irremote.ini. The only annoying thing I found is the repeat speed for up/down arrows is flaky but I suspect that is caused by my universal remote sending IR burts that the IR drivers are getting confused on (ie. is the user holding down the button or did they just press it too long?) Setting RepeatDelay=1 fixes it BUT then I get 2 keypresses for every 1 which obviously isn't good so I live with RepeatDelay=3 and just press the button repeatedly rather than hold it down. I plan to do more research to see if I can find a way around that or perhaps try a different remote.

Here are some links I found useful in my quest:

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=4277 (Explains editing irremote.ini to control actions based on remote presses)

http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Keyboard_and_Mouse (Shows some keyboard shortcuts but I found looking in xbmc's keymap.xml to be quite useful especially if I wanted to change what keystrokes did what)

http://www.vulturesnest.net/mythtvremote.html (Explains remapping keys on my remote)

http://www.hifi-remote.com/cgi-bin2/ueic.cgi?VCR_0081 (Tells advanced codes needed for my remote)

There were many many others I found which I might have used in some form but those are the ones I saved links to.

I hope this helps.
Bill

[Kingsley]

I found the easiest way was just to edit keymapping.xml or whatever its called.

Use a harmony 525, but have a different Ir reciever

[gstreet]

i use harmony 525 aswell and built my own ir-receiver. Just press a button on 525 and map the key in Girder 3.x. Works like a charm.

built my receiver for 8-9 euro.

peace